Spizzirri wins ITA Men’s Player of the Year award

AUTIN. ~ The Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) announced Monday that Eliot Spizzirri, a junior for the Texas men’s tennis team from Austin, has been selected National Player of the Year and Senior Player of the Year. Spizzirri finished the season at No. 1, earning him National Player of the Year honors and the senior award given to players who played their final year of college tennis before being forced to retire in due to a global epidemic. After Steve Bryan in 1990, Spizzirri is only the second Longhorn to finish the season ranked No. 1 in singles since the rankings began in 1981.

On February 8, the first rankings were announced after the start of double match play, and Spizzirri quickly rose to the top. Since Hess-Olesen in 2015, he was the only Longhorn to be ranked first in a season. For the second time in his career, he was named an ITA All-American in singles and doubles (the first time was in 2021). He now has five All-America honors in total (two in singles and three in doubles). After finishing second at the NCAA Doubles Championships with junior partner Cleeve Harper, he was ranked second in doubles.

Spizzirri was the 2023 Big 12 Player of the Year in singles and doubles after compiling an overall record of 36-5 in singles and a record of 20-1 in doubles while playing exclusively at the No. He had an overall singles record of 27-2, including an impressive 18-1 against the top 50 and 11-1 against the top 25 ranked players. Spizzirri was the top singles player at the ITA Indoor Nationals, where he was selected MVP and made the tournament’s All-Tournament Team. Additionally, it follows Sren Hess-Olesen, a former Texas player, as the program’s second senior since the award’s inception in 1981.

Along with being the Big 12 singles winner at No. 1, he was also named to the tournament’s All-Tournament team. Five times this season he has been named Big 12 Player of the Week, tying his own 2021 Big 12 single-season record, and ten times overall, setting a new record. Playing doubles, he and Harper spent the majority of the season ranked in the top three by the ITA. They finished the year with a 28-14 record overall, including 17 against ranked opponents (10 against top 25 teams, 6 against top 10 teams and 3 against top two teams, including a win over No. South Carolina No. 1. 1 Toby Samuel and Connor Thomson). They were the No. 1 Big 12 doubles champions and made the All-Big 12 first team.